Dallas stepmom gets 85 years in boy's dehydration death

DALLAS — A Dallas woman whose 10-year-old stepson died after she denied him water, even as temperatures soared above 100 degrees, was sentenced Tuesday to 85 years in prison.

Tina Marie Alberson did not react as her sentence was announced. She was convicted last week of reckless injury to a child, a second-degree felony, in the July 2011 death of Jonathan James.

Jonathan’s mother, Krista Bishop, and other relatives said they were pleased with the verdict.

“We got what we needed,” Bishop told reporters outside the court.

Police had thought Jonathan’s death was heat-related until the medical examiner’s report indicated otherwise.

Alberson, who testified in her own defense, told jurors she limited Jonathan’s water intake a few times as punishment for misbehaving, and that she saw him drinking water when he wasn’t in “time out.” She said she saw no sign he was in medical distress.

The boy’s twin brother, now 12, testified that Jonathan repeatedly asked for water and pretended to use the bathroom so he could sneak a drink from the faucet before their stepmother ordered him out. Joseph James told jurors he was concerned for his brother’s health but was too afraid of Alberson to do anything.

The boy’s father, Michael Ray James, 43, will be tried for felony injury to a child next month.

Shotwell said she’s forgiven Alberson but many members of the family, including Jonathan’s mother, have not. She said they remember Jonathan as an active little boy who wanted to wake up before dawn so he could ride his bike.

“I had to remind him that everyone else was asleep but us, and that he had to be very quiet outside, which he couldn’t do,” Shotwell said.

While in jail, Denmon said, Alberson became friends with an inmate involved in a high-profile child injury case: Elizabeth Escalona, who was sentenced to 99 years in prison last year for gluing her toddler’s hands to a wall and attacking her over potty training problems.